


Home Sweet Home

by morganya



Category: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-06
Updated: 2003-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:09:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're really very much alike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Sweet Home

Ted's never been a dump-and-pour kind of guy. He knows exactly how measurements are supposed to feel in his hands, how much is too much, how hot is too hot. Thom sometimes tells him that he would count every last grain in a pinch of salt if he could. And then he laughs, a throaty 'huh, huh, huh,' exhaled into the air like smoke, and Ted pretends to be offended.

It's not like Thom's Mr. Loosey-Goosey, either. He focuses on empty rooms, breaking them down into dimension molecules, mentally rearranging them until they match the perfect vision in his head. Ted is sure he doesn't realize that he does this, that it is as natural as breathing for him. He reminds Ted of a brilliant if slightly obsessed scientist hunched over steaming beakers, constantly reinventing the correct formula for a beautiful home.

Hearth and home. That's what Ted's mother used to say was most important in life. You always return to hearth and home. Part of being home, to him, is time spent in the kitchen, preparing food as well as eating it. Ted remembers this whenever he thinks about his job: it's something he tries to take seriously. He's spent years eating out in restaurants, considering the presentation of food, the dramatics of production. What it taught him was that the best restaurants presented eating as a sacrosanct activity, that piccata of veal sweetbreads and chocolate sabayon were off-limits food, not to be enjoyed so much as gasped at in wonder. He got tired of that pretty fast. He sees no reason why eating at Les Ambassadeurs should be somehow more special than a night spent with friends and family.

Not that he'd ever sit down willingly and eat a Hungry-Man Dinner with a domestic beer, which some of the straight men seem so content with. Jesus Christ, he'd rather kill himself.

But his tastes aren't the issue here, it's the job, trying to show that nobody needs to settle for less than wonderful. Most of the time he succeeds (though he can't help but inwardly mumble, "Philistines," when someone turns up their nose at his tortas and foie gras).

Thom understands the impulse. He turns cluttered rooms into places you want to come home to. It's not a four-star hotel, with keep-off linen sheets and light-colored, impersonal paint. It's a home. Ted sometimes wonders at how he accomplishes it; the process seems cloaked in mystery to him, like turning coal to diamonds. Thom always shoos everyone away while he's actually working on the house. Ted knows there are assistants on board, and Thom gloats about having minions to boss around, but the wardrobe mistress is constantly complaining to Thom about having to replace his clothes before they start shooting, about running out of white spirit to scrub off the paint splatter from Thom's hands and face. Like Ted, Thom is a perfectionist. He doesn't trust anyone else to get it right, to get the rooms _exactly_ as he sees them.

"Prima donna," Ted will murmur in Thom's ear sometimes as he sits behind him in the car, too low for anyone else to hear him, their own little secret. Thom, keeping his expression blank, will swat behind him, never close enough to really touch, his fingertips flicking across Ted's stomach, light as a caress.

The night before the last day of shooting, Ted makes truffles, fragrant with cognac and dusky with cocoa. A special treat, they've all earned it. One large batch for the crew, who will devour them, and a second, much smaller batch for them, because Carson, eternally weight-conscious, will freak out at all the butter and cream and Kyan will worry about the chocolate causing breakouts. He and Jai and Thom are the only ones who will find them irresistible, chilled, sweet ganache enveloped in bittersweet powder.

He offers one to Thom in the apartment, before the cameras start rolling again, before the others have come back from lunch.

Thom raises an eyebrow, truffle already halfway to his lips. "This isn't going to be the day you lose your mind, is it? I'm not going to eat this and regret it?" The laugh again.

"I gave one to Jai earlier. He'll tell you about it after he finishes getting his stomach pumped."

"Oh, well." Thom laughs and bites into the candy; it leaves a dusty trace on his lips. Thom swallows and shuts his eyes. "You," he almost-moans, "are a _genius._"

"Well, I do try," Ted says. He's distracted by Thom's mouth, by the deep cleft above his upper lip. Thom should always be smiling. "You've got a little..."

"Oh. I've got a little _shmutz,_" Thom rasps dramatically. He raises his hand to his mouth.

"Here, let me do it." Ted ponders running his thumb across Thom's mouth, brushing the cocoa away. His fastidious nature winning out, he flicks a clean handkerchief across Thom's lips instead.

Thom watches him, eyes darker than usual in the light. He hooks a finger through a loop in Ted's belt, pulling him close.

"Thanks, pumpkin."

Thom smells of chocolate and cream and cognac. Ted reminds himself to bring truffles in every day. It would be one more thing for them to share.

"My pleasure," he says. "My pleasure."


End file.
